Museum Kunstpalast

The Museum Kunstpalast is a major art museum in Düsseldorf, Germany, located in the Pempelfort district. Formerly known as the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, it stands as one of Germany's significant municipal art institutions, with roots extending back approximately three centuries. The museum operates under the Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, a public-private foundation established in 1998, and since 2020 has incorporated the neighboring NRW-Forum. Its collection spans from classical antiquity to the present day, encompassing more than 100,000 objects across nearly all artistic genres.

The Museum Kunstpalast holds objects of fine arts from classical antiquity to the present, comprising over 100,000 objects across nearly all artistic genres. Its holdings include paintings and sculptures from the Middle Ages to the present, drawings, more than 70,000 graphic exhibits and photographs, applied arts and design, and one of Europe's largest glass collections, the Helmut Hentrich Glass Museum.

The graphic collection alone contains 14,000 Italian baroque graphics. The collection presents works from Europe, Japan, and Persia/Iran, beginning with the 3rd century BC. Periods represented include Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, the time of Goethe, the 19th century, and the 20th century, including a substantial collection of ZERO works.

The museum also maintains the Archive for artistical photography of the rhenanian artscene (AFORK) as part of its Modern Department, with an extensive collection of prints. Together with the ZERO foundation, founded in collaboration with artists Heinz Mack, Günther Uecker, and Otto Piene, the museum plans a future Research Center for the Arts.

A significant chapter in the museum's recent history involved the restitution of Franz Marc's The Foxes (1913). In 2017, the family of German Jewish art collector Kurt Grawi requested its return. Grawi had acquired the painting in 1928; after Nazi persecution including the Aryanization of his business in 1935 and imprisonment in Sachsenhausen in 1938, he fled to Chile in 1939, selling the painting to fund his escape. In 2021, the German Advisory Commission recommended restitution to Grawi's heirs, which the Düsseldorf City Council approved. The painting was restituted in January 2022.

The museum preserves works that evoke the former glory of the Düsseldorf gallery, notably two large Rubens paintings that proved too difficult to transport when the electoral collection was moved to Munich in 1805. The collection of Lambert Krahe, acquired in Rome between 1736 and 1739 directly from the artist Jean-Charles Frontier, comprises 17 works and thirty drawings held by the museum.

Among Dutch and Flemish holdings, the museum displays paintings by Adriaen Isenbrant, Jan van Scorel, Maerten de Vos, Abraham Janssens, Caesar van Everdingen, Pieter Lastman, Adam van Noort, Peter Paul Rubens, Cornelis de Vos, Adriaen van Ostade, Frans Snyders, Jan Brueghel the Younger, Pieter Claesz., Jan van Goyen, and others. The museum also holds Jan Frans Douven's equestrian portrait of Johann Wilhelm of the Palatinate.

The 20th-century collection includes significant ZERO works, reflecting the museum's collaboration with the ZERO movement's key artists.

The museum occupies the Ehrenhof (court of honour) complex in Düsseldorf's Pempelfort district. The site's history begins in 1902, when the first Kunstpalast was erected for a major exhibition featuring artworks alongside industrial and trade items.

The present building originated in the Art Deco style designed by Wilhelm Kreis in 1926 for the GeSoLei exhibition on health care, social care, and exercise. The Communal Arts Collection and the Hetjens-Museum for ceramics moved into the Ehrenhof building in 1928. The ceramics collection relocated in 1969 to Palais Nesselrode at Schulstraße in Düsseldorf-Carlstadt.

The museum was extensively remodeled by architect Oswald Mathias Ungers and reopened in 2001, with the historic facade preserved under monument protection. From 1999 to 2000, Ungers directed this renovation. Since 2020, Sieber Architekten have undertaken partial remodeling during ongoing exhibitions. Following comprehensive renovation, the collection's new presentation opened in November 2023.

Integrated into the Kunstpalast is the Robert-Schumann-Saal, an independent concert hall offering 796 seats with its own programming. The NRW-Forum Kultur und Wirtschaft is also located within the same building complex.

The Museum Kunstpalast is located in Düsseldorf, Germany, in the Pempelfort district's Ehrenhof area, with its official website at https://www.kunstpalast.de/. The institution is owned and operated by the Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, which functions as a public-private partnership. As of 2020, the combined institution of Museum Kunstpalast and NRW-Forum employed 85 staff members.

The museum has hosted significant exhibitions of Old Masters, including a Caravaggio exhibition from 2006 to 2007, the largest El Greco exhibition in Germany in several decades in 2012 (demonstrating his influence on modern art), and a Francisco de Zurbarán exhibition from 2015 to 2016. The ZERO foundation maintains temporary offices with an extensive archive in the New Harbour area.

Digital access is available through the museum's official digital collection and a virtual tour provided by Google Arts & Culture.